Class Warfare and Video Games

Earlier this week, a coworker told me that he was trying to save money to get married. I congratulated him and asked if she knew yet. And then I stopped myself and said “er, her, right? Or him?”

I’m not always the most eloquent of people.

This coworker clarified that it was a lady, and then thanked me for pausing to make sure. We both sort of realized that heteronormativity is both easy to slip into, and a bit painful to be on the wrong side of. During the course of this conversation I learned that this coworker is the sort of christian who is waiting until marriage.

Let me be clear that I respect that choice. It’s not the one that I made, but I do respect it. And waiting until marriage to have sex is a choice, in the way that being gay is not a choice. That understanding is the reason American society has been rapidly swinging around towards acceptance of gay people as people- as fully human and deserving of all the happiness that life can bring. It’s that very understanding that lead a US District court to strike down a Utah law banning same-sex marriage.

I bet there are a lot of men in Utah tonight frantically looking for a suit in which to get married. I don’t mean to exclude the women from that sentence, but, well… 364 days ago today I was scrambling around San Francisco looking for a suit in which to get married. I found one, and a day later I said some vows, my lady said some vows, and our lives changed.

It was cold that night. Cold enough that I really did think it plausible that the world might descend into entropy the way crackpots were saying the Mayans had foretold. And I was happy enough to make jokes during the vows.

She married me anyway.

I can’t even say the way being married has changed me. I know it has, but when people talk about a “mystical union” they’re right. And today and tomorrow and for a long time to come, an entirely new group of people will feel that fierce joy that I have felt on being in a partnership with another human being. For the rest of our lives.